“No way around it, the whole thing was a scandal,” Katie admitted, “because rather than break up John’s marriage, which would have been horrible, Mom married Hal Kinkaid and told him I was his. The only other person who knew the truth was John.”

“And he allowed it?” Luke asked, disgusted with the man.

“At least he didn’t put up a fight,” she allowed, obviously trying not to show the little bit of pain she still felt over the fact that her biological father hadn’t claimed her for most of her life. “John didn’t want a divorce or to lose Bliss. So . . .”

“You grew up living a lie.”

She lifted a shoulder and sighed sadly. The breeze caught in her hair, lifting it from her face, and Luke felt a possessive need to place an arm around her shoulders and pull her close, to hold her and comfort her.

“It’s not that big a deal now. I never much liked Hal, anyway. He was a jerk, so I didn’t cry many tears when he and Mom split up. You have to remember, it was kind of a tradition with my mother to marry a guy for a few years, then divorce him and marry someone else.”

Katie shook her head as if to dismiss the negative sound of her last statement. “Mom isn’t a bad person, just kind of flighty. Impulsive, I guess you’d say, especially when it comes to men. To her credit, though, she always loved John.”

“Even though he was married to someone else.”

“Yeah. Weird, huh?”

“To each his own,” he said, though he didn’t believe it. Marriage was marriage. You didn’t step over the line. You didn’t cheat. He’d felt the sting of that whip himself and had vowed at the time that he’d never be flogged again. “So . . . what about you?” he asked. “I thought Kinkaid was your married name.”

“My what?” she demanded. “I’ve never gotten married, but I see what you thought—because my name is different from anyone else’s in my family.” She laughed nervously. The subject was touchy.

“Yep.”

“I guess you’d say I never met the right guy.”

She glanced away as if embarrassed and he mentally kicked himself from one side of hell to the other for the look of pain he’d brought to her pixie-like features. Still, he couldn’t give up. There were just too many unanswered questions. “So . . . what happened between you and Josh’s father?”

“Josh’s father,” she repeated, then cleared her throat and looked away. “He and I . . . We were just kids.” Nervously she rubbed her arms and the sound of a truck’s engine cut through the night.